Brisk sports action enhanced by treatment of personal, political, and racial stereotyping issues.
Challenges dog two star players both on and off the court.
Fresh from soccer triumphs in Benchwarmers (2019), sixth grade buds Jeff Michaels and Andi Carillo eagerly sign up for, respectively, Merion Middle School’s boys and girls b-ball teams. Jeff discovers bullying soccer nemesis Ron Arlow is likewise trying out for point guard, and Andi is saddled with Amy Josephson, a coach who admits that she’s never coached before. Frictions develop as the two squads get off to stumbling starts—but the girls have by far the worst of it, as Coach Josephson proves ignorant of hoops strategy and tactics, benches Andi for imagined insubordination, and then caps it all by making racist remarks about black athletes. Feinstein’s game descriptions are tight and exciting for any reader but even moreso for those who know a pick and roll from a zone trap. At the end the drama moves from basketball court to food court as Jeff and Andi go from jock friends to something closer…and even to the courtroom after the offer from Fran Dunphy (an actual, renowned college coach) to take over the girls team draws an injunction from the teachers union. Both young jocks show that when the pressure is on, they’ve got game in life as well as hoops. Most of the cast is white; some players are African American (and one is generically Asian).
Brisk sports action enhanced by treatment of personal, political, and racial stereotyping issues. (Sports fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-374-31205-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls.
Three young ghost trappers take on deadly wraiths and solve an old murder case in the bargain to kick off Stroud’s new post-Bartimaeus series.
Narrator Lucy Carlyle hopes to put her unusual sensitivity to supernatural sounds to good use by joining Lockwood & Co.—one of several firms that have risen to cope with the serious ghost Problem that has afflicted England in recent years. As its third member, she teams with glib, ambitious Anthony Lockwood and slovenly-but-capable scholar George Cubbins to entrap malign spirits for hire. The work is fraught with peril, not only because a ghost’s merest touch is generally fatal, but also, as it turns out, as none of the three is particularly good at careful planning and preparation. All are, however, resourceful and quick on their feet, which stands them in good stead when they inadvertently set fire to a house while discovering a murder victim’s desiccated corpse. It comes in handy again when they later rashly agree to clear Combe Carey Hall, renowned for centuries of sudden deaths and regarded as one of England’s most haunted manors. Despite being well-stocked with scream-worthy ghastlies, this lively opener makes a light alternative for readers who find the likes of Joseph Delaney’s Last Apprentice series too grim and creepy for comfort.
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls. (Ghost adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-6491-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
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